Dantonio, Hollis: Michigan State safe place despite sex assault cases

Michigan State athletic director Mark Hollis and football coach Mark Dantonio address the media after three football players were dismissed stemming from sexual assault charges June 6, 2017.

"We've been prepared for this (announcement), and took the correct actions," MSU football coach Mark Dantonio said, Tuesday, June 6, 2017. Charges were filed against MSU football players Josh King, Donnie Corley, and Demetric Vance for sexual assault. All three were dismissed from the team Tuesday morning.(Photo: MATTHEW DAE SMITH/Lansing State Journal)

EAST LANSING – Mark Hollis nearly came to tears. Mark Dantonio’s voice crackled with emotion. But both spoke emphatically when it came to addressing the two sexual assault cases and charges against four football players.

Michigan State is a safe place, athletic director Hollis and head football coach Dantonio declared.

“This is and has been an extremely challenging situation that we have taken very seriously throughout the entire process,” Dantonio said Tuesday. “It has affected everyone in this program, top to bottom. … The high standards I have established for this program will not change. The values that we teach to everyone in this program will be enforced. And I expect all of our players and staff to conduct themselves in a manner that reflects the ideals of this university.”

Hollis, when asked if Dantonio is the right person to lead the football program, echoed what the MSU Board of Trustees decried Monday and reiterated that Dantonio “did the right thing” in the reporting process, as found in the Jones Day report that was issued after that board meeting.

“He’s done it before, and I have confidence that he can do it again,” Hollis said of Dantonio, who is entering his 11th year. “We’ve had very frank conversations, but we always do. We challenge each other. I think that’s good, and I think that’s healthy. I’m confident.

“I do want to say the accountability for student-athletes is coaches, regardless of what the sport is. But he has the full support of everybody in our department and all the resources that can assist with that process.”

Defensive lineman Josh King, 19, of Darien, Ill., is charged with one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, as well as with capturing an image of an unclothed person. Wide receiver Donnie Corley, 19, and safety Demetric Vance, 20, both of Detroit, are charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Dantonio said he had a member of MSU’s Office of Institutional Equity talk to the football program days before the three were accused to have assaulted the woman. That discussion involved “a case at another university in this country.”

“So the education, I felt, was there,” Dantonio said, “and they compromised themselves by getting involved in such a situation." … I’m angry. I don’t want to say betrayed. I’m angry. I feel like the education was there.

“I feel like I’ve talked about the sense of responsibility that our players have — not to be a good football player, but to be a good person, to do their very best."

The three players had been suspended from football activities Feb. 9. Curtis Blackwell, the program’s director of college advancement and performance at the time, also was suspended that day with pay. The Jones Day report said Blackwell contacted the three players and one of their parents after the allegations were made, but that he did not report those conversations to anyone else at MSU. His contract was not renewed on May 31 after two one-month extensions.

“There has been a lot of sleepless nights,” Dantonio said. “There’s been a lot of times where I have to sit in my living room and I think about the things that are happening.”

Dantonio would not address the dismissal of defensive lineman Auston Robertson other than calling him “a risk.” Robertson, 19, of Ft. Wayne, Ind., was charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for an alleged rape of a fellow MSU student that occurred April 8 in Meridian Township. He was dismissed from the program April 22.

Robertson also had been arrested in January 2016 on a misdemeanor battery charge stemming from an October 2015 incident at his high school in Ft. Wayne. He was accused of improperly touching a female classmate, according to Allen Superior Court 4 records. He entered into a diversionary program for that case, which he completed March 11.

Robertson also had charges dropped in September 2015 after allegations of criminal mischief/damaging property and resisting law enforcement, according to Allen Superior Court 5 records.

Dantonio referred to his April statement that Robertson “underwent an extensive educational process” that included “daily supervised sessions within the football program and regular meetings with university staff addressing appropriate behavior and developmental growth.” Robertson’s diversionary program included a 22-week course focused on behavior changes that began in Indiana and was transferred to the state of Michigan’s Prevention and Training Services program.

“We’ve never intentionally brought a guy in here and said, ‘Hey, that guy’s going to be a bad guy,’” Dantonio said Tuesday. “Obviously, we took a risk as you said earlier. We vetted the young man. Prior to that, that has never happened as I can recollect.”

Hollis said he has created a three-person panel to oversee “rules and areas within our football program.” That is comprised of Elliott Daniels, the athletic department's director of learning and retention, whom Hollis said will be promoted to associate athletic director; former police officer Alan Haller, the senior associate athletic director and “Varsity S Club” executive director; and Jennifer Smith, the senior associate athletic director for compliance services.

Both Dantonio and Hollis spent time addressing the alleged victim, whose attorney sat quietly in the back of the room. They also both emphasized that sexual assault has no place a MSU or any other campus.

“This is my home. It is where my wife and I attended school. Where one son and my daughter have earned their degree and where my other son will enroll this fall,” Hollis said. “I expect my home to be safe. Safe to all who live here and safe to all who visit. Like any home its safety requires shared responsibility and accountability. As athletic director I am responsible to make tomorrow better than today.”

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Lansing State Journal columnist Graham Couch joins Detroit Free Press writers Chris Solari and Shawn Windsor following Michigan State's news conference on the dismissal of three football players on June 6, 2017.